Pulse

by Michael Harvey

  “I left you a note back at the place,” he said. “My brother moved out.”

  Prescott didn’t give a shit. As long as the rent got paid Harry could do what he liked. Zeus was a different story.

  “Moved out? Kid’s in fucking high school.” Zeus had only met Daniel once, but it didn’t matter. Daniel was a Fitzsimmons, and that meant family.

  “Technically, he’s supposed to live in Boston to attend Latin School,” Harry said. “So he found a room in Kenmore Square. Says he’s renting from a Harvard prof. Simon Lane?”

  “Never heard of him,” Zeus said. Prescott shook his head.

  “You working out?” Prescott nodded at Zeus’s sweats.

  “Little morning jog.”

  “How about you?” Prescott glanced at Harry. Prescott had been a hot-shit running back in high school, but the speed hadn’t translated to college. Still, he was a jock in his head and that horse died hard, if at all.

  “Lifted yesterday. Did some cardio.”

  Prescott nodded like he was the guy who kept track of that stuff.

  “Just talking about tonight,” Zeus said.

  “You in, superstar?” It’d be like Prescott to make a big deal if Harry said no.

  “Yeah, I’m in.”

  “Awesome. I’m driving. Sanchez, you’re getting your dick sucked. Fitzsimmons, who the fuck knows?”

  The door to the Tasty opened and two women walked in. Behind them was a tall, middle-aged man, tightly wound through the neck and shoulders, the tension releasing in a shock of curly hair. The man’s eyes widened a touch when he saw the three of them sitting at the counter. Prescott raised his hand.

  “Nick, over here. You guys know Nick Toney?”

  Nick Toney was a photographer, one of those high-end guys with exhibitions at universities and places like the Museum of Fine Arts. For some reason Prescott loved photography and had all kinds of fancy-ass equipment lying around the apartment. Toney had come over one night to talk to him about some gear. Harry hadn’t been there, but Prescott told him Toney’s advice was simple. Stop buying cameras and start taking pictures. Harry liked that.

  “How you guys doing?” Toney slid in next to Harry as Prescott made the introductions. Zeus grunted through a mouthful of eggs. Harry shook the man’s hand.

  “Nice to meet you, sir.”

  “Do me a favor and drop the ‘sir.’ You’re Neil’s roommate?”

  “Yes, sir. I mean, Nick.”

  “I feel like I know you from somewhere?”

  Harry shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “No?” Toney cocked his head and offered up his best doorman’s grin, teeth white and straight and strong.

  “You probably seen him in the paper,” Zeus said. “First team, All-Ivy.”

  “Whoa. Superstar.”

  “Hardly.” Harry felt the burn at the back of his neck and in his cheeks.

  “He’s the modest type,” Prescott said, buttering a piece of Zeus’s toast and enjoying the hell out of Harry’s discomfort.

  “Nothing wrong with being modest,” Toney said. “Still, that’s a hell of a thing, Harry.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You guys headed home for Turkey Day?”

  “Staying in town,” Harry said. “Me and my brother are just gonna hang around the apartment.”

  Toney raised his chin and let his eyes drop over to Zeus.

  “Probably head home.”

  “We were just talking about tonight,” Prescott said. “Thinking about going down to the Zone.” Prescott looked expectantly at Toney, who shifted his shoulders and grinned uneasily.

  “Nick does a lot of shooting down there,” Prescott said.

  “Actually, I’ve got some studio space. I do portraits of the girls when they’re not working. Try to document their lives.”

  “I volunteer in Chinatown,” Harry said. “We do a lot of outreach in the Zone.”

  Toney shot a finger at Harry. “Maybe that’s where I’ve seen you.”

  “Could be. You probably get a lot of college guys down there.”

  “College, high school. Businessmen, tourists. Perverts, priests, fuckers older than dirt. All kinds, my friend. All kinds.” The counterman came by with a coffee for the photographer. Toney stirred in some sugar and took a measured sip. “Something I don’t understand. Football players from Harvard, right? World by the balls. So why in the fuck would you wanna go down the Zone? I mean, to me, it makes no sense.”

  “It’s sort of an end-of-the-season tradition,” Harry said, feeling as stupid as he sounded and trying to figure out how and why he was explaining something he wanted no part of.

  “Not a nice place, Harry, but you already know that.”

  “It’s just a night.”

  “It’s always just a night. I mean, what else can it be, right? Anyway, I’ll give you a free piece of advice. Take it for what it’s worth.” Toney dropped his voice a notch as the three Harvard boys leaned in. “I know most of the girls who work down there. I know the guys who run the girls. No offense, but they live for a crew like you. Drunk, horny as shit.” Toney rubbed a finger and thumb together. “Plenty of cashish. Girls will pick your pocket, pimps roll you in an alley. And that’s just the start. So what you gotta do is play it smart. Stay together. In the bars, on the street. Together. Do that and you’ll be fine. All right?”

  They nodded. Toney made eye contact with each in turn, lingering on Harry, taking note of the ripped-up clothes and the rest of it. “It’s always the crazy-looking fucks that wind up being the most responsible. Am I wrong?”

  “I don’t think we should be going if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “But you’ll keep an eye out?”

  “Yes, sir. Sorry, Nick.”

  “Good. I feel better. Come on, Neil. If you want me to take a look at those lenses, we better get moving. Later, boys.”

  Toney threw down enough money to pay for everyone. Then he and Prescott left.

  “Guy acts like he knows us,” Zeus said.

  “Probably just seen a lot of idiots like us.”

  Zeus shrugged.

  “What is it?”

  “Been thinking ’bout tonight. Maybe it’s not such a great idea.”

  “Now you come around. Christ, what did Toney say that I didn’t?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing.”

  “Well, we gotta go now. Otherwise, I’ll have to listen to asshole roomie. Anyway, Toney’s right. If we stay together, it’s not a problem. You done?”

  Zeus nodded and they both got up.

  “What time we supposed to meet?” Harry said.

  “Seven o’clock. Prescott wants to grab dinner first.”

  “Don’t worry, Zeus. Like you said, an hour. Two, tops, and we’re out of there.” Harry patted the big tackle on the shoulder. “Besides, I got you watching my back.”

  13

  KIDS EVERYWHERE, sprinting up and down stairs, yelling at each other in the halls, slamming lockers, dropping books, everyone rushing to beat the bell. Grace led the way, tackling the main staircase two steps at a time. A door opened and they caught a glimpse of the school’s auditorium. Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, and Ralph Waldo Emerson were just a few of the names carved into the white frieze that ran around the room. Daniel remembered staring up at them the first time he sat in the auditorium. Their headmaster, William Keating, told the class of five hundred seventh graders to take a good look at the student to his left and his right. “Two of you won’t be graduating with a Latin School diploma,” Keating assured them with a grin that was more predator than educator. After all, Sumus Primi and all that. So let the games begin.

  Grace had slipped just ahead, taking a corner at the top of the stairs. Daniel sprinted up the last flight, Ben sharp on his heels. They caught up to her just as she hit homeroom. One kid had his head on his desk and was dead asleep. Two others played football with a bus pass, sliding the plastic disk across the width of the table and trying to get it to hang
over the edge without falling off. If one of them scored, he got to kick an extra point by flicking the disk with his fingers while the other kid held his hands together and made a goalpost.

  “Haverly is out sick.” One of the table football players spoke without ever taking his eyes off the game. “No homeroom today.”

  The three of them walked back into the hallway. Eddie Spaulding was chewing on a plastic straw and sitting in a chair, balanced on its two rear legs and tilted back against the wall.

  “Bookworm.” Eddie was a senior, starting running back and safety on the football team. The hype had him pegged as a star in college, but Daniel thought high school might be as good as it got. For some unfathomable reason, Eddie had opted to study ancient Greek and it quickly became his bane. In other words, Ben was his best friend.

  “Hey, Eddie.” Ben didn’t seem to care about the nickname Eddie had given him. Maybe he was oblivious, or, again, maybe just Ben.

  Eddie tipped forward so all four legs of his chair were on the floor. “Haverly’s out today.”

  “They told us,” Grace said. “What are you doing out here?”

  Eddie’s eyes moved from Grace to Daniel before settling again on Ben.

  “Let me guess,” Grace said. “You need help?”

  “It’s the fucking Iliad. I was up until three in the morning and got nowhere.”

  “We’re in the middle of ‘Book Six,’” Ben said. “Hector and Andromache.” He plopped down on the floor and opened his briefcase. Eddie Spaulding began to pull books out of a canvas bag he’d stashed by his feet. First came a copy of the Iliad in the original Greek, then a Greek dictionary followed by a spiral notebook with a few lines of English translation scribbled in it. The fourth book was smaller, bound in red with its title written in tiny script on the spine.

  “What’s that?” Daniel said.

  “It’s a trot,” Grace said. “Gives you Greek on one page and English on the other.”

  Daniel picked up the book and flipped it open. He’d heard of them but never actually seen one. “Wow.”

  “Don’t get so excited,” Eddie said. “DiCara can smell a trot a mile away.”

  “That’s true,” Ben said. “Most of the teachers here can tell if you’re using a translation aid. Besides, Eddie, you don’t need it.”

  “Because I have you?” Eddie grinned as the bell rang, signaling two minutes until the start of first period.

  “Because you’re smart.” Ben tapped his temple. “It’s just a matter of sticking with it. Remember what DiCara said about the grain of sand trapped in an oyster.”

  “It doesn’t become a pearl overnight.”

  “It takes time and diligence. Just like football.”

  “Yeah, yeah, that’s pissa. Just help me with a couple of spots.” Eddie pointed to a line in the Greek text. Ben took a look.

  “ἐϋκνήμιδες Ἀχαιοὶ. It means ‘strong-greaved Achaeans.’”

  “That’s what the trot says. Gimme another word.”

  “‘Well-greaved.’”

  “What the fuck are greaves?”

  “They’re like shin pads for hockey. The Greeks wore them during battle.”

  Eddie looked up from his scribbles. “You’re kidding?”

  “It’s an epithet. Homer uses them throughout the poem. Most people think it was a mnemonic device as well as a way to keep the lines in meter.”

  “Can I say shin guards?”

  “No, Eddie. Say ‘greaved.’ ‘Well-greaved.’ That will get you by.”

  Eddie scribbled some more and fretted. “Shit, I got a lot more.”

  “I’m on door duty by the gym for first period.”

  Grace shook her head. “Ben? Seriously?”

  “Come by and we’ll go over the rest of it.”

  “You’ll give me the lines?” Eddie said.

  “Only after we go over them.”

  The bell rang again. One minute to first period.

  “Thanks, Bookworm. Sorry, I mean Ben. I’ll come by.” Spaulding stood up, giving Grace a longer glance than Daniel would have liked before drifting around the corner. Ben picked up his briefcase and took off running in the opposite direction, the words floating back over his shoulder.

  “I like to help people, Grace. It’s what I’m good at.”

  “Guess he told you.” Daniel elbowed Grace in the ribs and followed Ben, the three of them skidding to a halt in the stairwell.

  “You know they have asbestos in this place?” Ben pointed to an insulated pipe running across the ceiling and a burst of white filament feathering into fine strands. “I read an article that says it’s toxic.”

  “Forget about the asbestos,” Grace said, touching Ben’s sleeve. “Just keep your door closed and locked.”

  “You think something’s going to happen?”

  “Better safe than sorry.”

  The bell rang a final time, this one longer and louder, indicating the beginning of first period. Grace and Daniel watched as Ben tumbled down the stairs. Then they hustled up a flight, slipping into the English Department just as Mr. Rozner stepped out of the teachers’ lounge, reading the New York Times and sipping a cup of coffee.

  Daniel and Grace buried themselves at the back of the department, the familiar smells of copying fluid and textbooks saturating the air around them. Grace got to work shelving copies of David Copperfield. Daniel reviewed a stencil of next month’s schedule for the department and snapped it onto the ink-filled drum of the mimeograph machine. He’d just begun to turn out copies when Rozner came in. Usually the head of the English Department wandered back to their work area for a brief chat. Today, however, he went straight to his desk. Then Daniel heard something he’d never heard in his three months of working there—the sound of a television.

  * * *

  Mr. Rozner was tucked into his tiny desk, half-moon glasses pushed down his nose, riveted to a small black-and-white perched atop an annotated edition of William Shakespeare’s complete works. Daniel cleared his throat and rustled up against a stack of books. Rozner half turned.

  “You were late. Both of you were.”

  “Sorry, sir.” Daniel felt Grace bump up behind him. “The buses were running slow today.”

  Rozner dumped a spoonful of Cremora into his coffee and took a sip. “Not surprising. Not surprising at all.”

  Daniel could feel Grace stiffen even though she wasn’t actually touching him. Rozner was old-school and had that effect on everyone who worked for him. In class he was supposed to be even worse.

  “Nguyen.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Go see Professor Lonergan in Room 311. He’s got a book I need you to pick up.”

  Grace left without a word. Rozner went back to watching television. On the tiny screen, a fist of a woman stood at a microphone. The sound was too low for Daniel to make out the words, but he could see her pale face and red-lipped mouth opened wide to accommodate whatever was coming out of it. The camera panned back to reveal the crowd. They covered City Hall Plaza, filling the redbrick and concrete tiers all the way to the Government Center T stop. Handmade signs of varying designs and shapes waved up and down, back and forth. NO BUSING. RESIST. EAST BOSTON AGAINST FORCED BUSING. Rozner turned down the sound all the way. They listened in the quiet as footsteps passed in the hall. Sheets of dust drifted in yellow light falling from a cracked porcelain fixture that hung off the wall. The light was newly born but already seemed old beyond knowing. Daniel wondered if other students had labored beneath it, generation after generation, making their copies while mapping their futures in their heads.

  “You’re Harry Fitzsimmons’s brother?”

  Daniel jumped. Rozner was watching him closely. Daniel had no idea what he’d seen. “Yes, sir.”

  “How’s he doing at Harvard?”

  “Pretty well.”

  “I remember about that. Your mother and all.”

  “I was eight.”

  “Yes, well, I heard about it. Later, of c
ourse. What’s Harry now?”

  “A sophomore, sir.”

  “A sophomore?” Rozner pulled off his glasses and rubbed his hands over his face. His Shakespeare class was a rite of passage for juniors and seniors, his command of the material and attention to detail the stuff of Latin School legend. This morning, however, Rozner seemed far more man than myth, deep red lines creased down both sides of his nose, his white head of hair slightly mussed on top and at the sides.

  “Do we have you working here for the whole year?”

  “That’s up to you, sir. I’d prefer the whole year.”

  Rozner gestured to the straight-backed chair beside his desk. “Sit down.”

  Daniel did.

  “You know what Latin School does, Fitzsimmons?”

  “Gives you a good education.”

  “It does a hell of a lot more than that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “It gives you a chance. Something you might not ever have otherwise. You realize how fragile that is?”

  “Fragile?”

  “Yes, fragile.” Rozner nodded at the silent images flashing across his TV screen. “What you see there is the genie let out of the bottle. I thought it might tire itself out.”

  “But it’s not?”

  “I’m afraid not.” Rozner straightened his shoulders and sat up. “Latin School provides the opportunity, but it’s up to you to make something of it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. That’s good.” The head of Latin School’s English Department ran his hands quietly over his hair as if to compose himself and replaced his glasses, the black edges of the frames fitting neatly into the grooves in his nose they’d carved there. Then he cleared his throat and began to shuffle through a stack of blue books piled up on his desk. “There’s some notices that need to be copied and sent out. They’re on the table beside the mimeograph.”

  Daniel found the stencils right where Rozner said he would. He clipped the first one to the large steel cylinder on the mimeograph and began to crank. Rozner sat at his desk and read, the veins in his cheeks threaded with color, thick fingers working as he cut and slashed his way through the blue books. They didn’t exchange another word for the rest of the period. When the bell rang, Rozner came over and checked Daniel’s copies. He made a couple of notations on a sheet, nodded, and moved to the door. Grace was standing there.